Baroness Pitkeathley
Main Page: Baroness Pitkeathley (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Pitkeathley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to abolish the practice of payment of retainer fees to general practitioners for providing services to care homes.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, my honourable friend the Minister of State for Care and Support has written to the chief inspector of general practice and to the chief inspector of adult social care to ask them to consider this issue. Let me be clear: GP practices should ensure that any services provided to care homes for which a retainer is charged are not those currently provided under their contract with NHS England. NHS England is responsible for ensuring that the terms of the GP contract are being met.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply, but does she agree that, since all patients in care homes are, as she says, entitled to NHS services anyway, to charge them for an enhanced service and then not provide it is actually fraudulent? Moreover, it causes a great many problems in the NHS as well. If an old person is not adequately treated in the care home, that often results in unnecessary admission to hospital through A&E, unnecessary distress for the older person and unnecessary cost for the NHS when they could have been treated simply and quickly in the care home had the GP been doing a proper job. Will the Government take further action on this?
Baroness Jolly
The noble Baroness is right, and the Government have made clear their commitment to improving care for vulnerable old people. As I said in my Answer, any GPs who provide services should do so free of charge, and any money paid by care homes to practices should be for something over and above that. The sort of thing that we might be thinking of is assistance with training or possibly helping out with something like a health and safety audit, but certainly not basic NHS care.